“This is my magic evening,” Cadance remarked while she pulled a teal and bright pink sweater from a blue and gold boutique box. “So many tender romances bloom this night, already established tender romances will blossom into something more meaningful, and I’m almost certain that some of the older students will work up the nerve to ask the most important question of their lives.” The pink alicorn inhaled, held it for a time, and then sighed in bliss.
“I knows whats that question is too. Hey yous… do I gots punch on my neck?”
Eyes narrowing, ears perking, Cadance’s lower lip protruded in disgust and she advanced on Gosling, the sweater raised in a manner most menacing. Shaking her head from side to side, she grabbed Gosling with her magic, subdued him, held him still, and pulled the sweater over his head while ignoring his muffled protests. With a yank, she pulled it down his neck, over his chest, along his barrel, and then lifted him from the ground without effort so she could slip his legs through the sleeves.
A few yards away, Shining Armor stood smirking.
With the popping crackle of static, the woollen sweater slipped into place, and Cadance began to button the flaps just behind the wings, securing the ridiculous garment to Gosling’s torso. The resulting electrical charge caused Gosling’s mane to poof and little arcs could be seen trailing along his newly-grown feathers. Reaching out with one long bladed primary, he booped Cadance on the nose and gave her a delightful, well-deserved zap that made her mane frizz out.
“Ooooo!” Cross eyed, Cadance backed away, her snoot twitching, and she slapped Gosling away with her wing. “That smarts!”
Wing still extended, Gosling advanced on Flurry, his face an exaggerated expression of menacing villainy, and rather than run to hide behind her father, the little filly stood her ground, her feathers fluffing, cheeks bulging, her whole body puffed out as much as possible to make her look larger. With a terrifying “Grrr!” Flurry advanced with her teeth bared.
With a total lack of concern for the impending filly on pegasus violence, Cadance said, “The sweater comes from the Canterlot Cable Company. They do custom knits. It really is of excellent equality, wouldn’t you agree? I love the design, with all of the cute little horns, wings, pony shoes, and snowflakes.” The Princess of Love’s ears pricked straight when she heard the zap of static electricity, followed by Flurry’s grunt of pain. “Flurry, darling, do be gentle.”
Flurry pawed the floor with her hoof, and then, a moment later, she charged and went right for Gosling’s legs with a terrific snarl that left a proud look on her parents’ faces. Chuffing like a locomotive, Flurry swept Gosling’s legs out from beneath him, shimmied to one side while he toppled over, then with a whoop of triumph, she glomped his neck, which left him pinned to the ground and breathless.
“Oh hey,” Cadance said, offering up a casual remark. “That sweater really matches Flurry’s shade of pink. I need to get my fewocious widdle fiwwy a sweater! Yes I do!”
As Gosling came into the parlour, his legs aching, and every inch of his hide covered in sweater itching, he was accosted by a lavender filly that almost appeared to be Twilight Sparkle in miniature, minus the wings. He froze in the doorway, looking down, and the filly looked up at him with enormous, wide, expressive eyes that had the most curious, most intriguing crescent moon-shaped pupils.
“That’s a neat trick with the eye thing, Luna,” he deadpanned while he studied her face.
“With each new form I adopt, more instabilities manifest,” Luna responded, sounding quite unlike herself. “Truly, the magic of the changelings is unique and wondrous. All of this places a dreadful strain on my mind, projecting this dream illusion into the waking world. Every time I create a new form, some new, uncontrollable quirk manifests that I can’t control, things constructed from the dreams of others. Right now, I am a composite made from the dreams of Twilight Sparkle, and I am having the most bookwormy thoughts.”
“Luna, why do you do this to yourself?” Gosling asked.
“Because, this is necessary, Gosling. If I must sacrifice parts of myself to do my duties and my penance, then so I shall.”
The sudden frown halted just short of being a scowl and Gosling shook his head from side to side, not liking what he was hearing from Luna. He looked down at her and she continued to look up at him, the edges of her white teeth just visible between her parted lips. Try as he might, Gosling had no idea of how to feel about this, other than just the sense of being disturbed.
“Upsies?” The filly’s lips contorted into a confused pout, and then her face underwent a rapid transformation into sudden, utter mortification. “Why would I say such a thing? Why?”
“I have a little time.” Lowering his head down, Gosling took advantage of Luna’s stunned surprise and got himself a mouthful of the nape of her neck, as well as her mane.
“Stop, that tickles! Untooth me!” She kicked and wiggled, heavy against Gosling’s teeth, but he held on. “Hooves on floor, now! Downsies! Downsies!”
Ignoring her protests, Gosling straightened his neck, lifting Luna in a body not her own, and the back of his mind entertained all manner of curious implications while he strode over to the sofa with Luna still hanging by the nape of her neck. He lifted one front hoof up onto the sofa, then the other, and bracing his hind legs against the floor, he boosted himself up. Overweighted on one end, off balance, he almost tipped the sofa over, which forced him to spread his wings to try and balance.
“Scary!” Luna cried in a voice that was remarkably like Twilight Sparkle’s might have been as a filly.
Gosling recovered his balance, sat down, twisted about, got his back against the sofa, and then dropped Luna into his forelegs for a snuggle. Looking down into her eyes, he could see her resentment, her fear, and her worry, so he gave her a reassuring squeeze. In return, she pressed one stubby foreleg against the base of his neck and pushed herself back, increasing the distance between their muzzles by inches.
“This is nice,” she whispered, and then, after a moment of extreme tension, she relaxed a little. “For a moment, I thought that you might…”—she cleared her throat with a petite cough and then averted her eyes—“never mind what I thought. I should feel ashamed for thinking it.”
“It’s hard for you to lie like this, isn’t it?” Gosling asked.
“In this form?” she replied, pulling her foreleg away from Gosling’s neck so that she might lean her body against him. “Very much so. Everything about this body demands honesty. These projected dream illusions have a life of their own.” With a breathy sigh, she settled against him and rested her head against the corner of his jaw.
“Like Moonlight Raven?” Gosling asked while he thought of how that illusion’s mascara ran, the mental image strong in his mind.
“Yes.”
For some reason, Gosling thought of the stained glass window and of illusions that took on a life of their own. Celestia too, was good at illusions, he had witnessed that with his own eyes, but Luna was extraordinary. He began to wonder if perhaps he was dreaming while awake, further adding to the realism of holding this tiny filly against him, noting how she had just the right heft, a soft, foalish coat that lacked the thicker, bristlier coarseness of adulthood, and how something about her awoke the powerful, protective instincts within him.
“Luna, I’m back—oh.” Celestia froze in the doorway, her eyes and her mouth both round with surprise. “I was just coming to tell you that the security team is ready and waiting. I had no idea that you… well… I…” Her words trailed off and the shocked mare punctuated herself by making a popping sound with her lips. Then, after sputtering a bit, she added, “I should be going.”
“Stay.” Luna’s request was pleading. “Sit with us.”
“Luna, I don’t know—”
“Please?”
“Luna, you’re in the guise of my former student—”
“I was just trying it on.”
“Well, it’s creepy to the extreme to see Gosling snuggling a tiny Twilight Sparkle.”
“I demanded upsies. I am baffled as to why.”
“Twilight was fond of upsies.” Celestia blinked and took one step backwards while shaking her head. “Luna, please.”
“But I like this body and the emotions that it has.”
Gosling felt his stomach muscles clench, and he assumed that Luna did too, because she squirmed. This seemed to be a moment that could only become more awkward with each passing second, and Gosling lamented how magic seemed to complicate every aspect of everyday life. Luna shifted, lifted her head a little more, and her tail swished against his thigh, causing the muscles to jerk and quiver.
“Luna, we talked about these vicarious experiences with Cadance—”
“My whole life is a vicarious experience,” Luna snapped and Gosling felt her whole body trembled with rigidity. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore. The dream world keeps bleeding over into the real world and half the time I can’t tell when I’m sleeping or awake! I can’t even tell where I end and the illusion begins now most of the time! My life has turned into a fog of lies and treachery!”
Luna it seemed, was having a tiny Twilight tantrum, enduring yet another aspect of Twilight’s borrowed personality, and her whole body spasmed with rage. There was a brilliant flash of light and then, all of a sudden, Gosling found himself crushed by Luna’s weight, which was far, far more than one might expect. She was big, and blue, and clinging to his neck.
“We grow weary of this duty,” she cried, and then, with a crackle, Luna vanished.
Blinking, Gosling sat on the sofa, his forelegs now empty, and somehow the sweater was now even itchier. Reaching up with his right foreleg, he scratched at his neck, listened to the sound of the clock ticking somewhere from behind him, and tilting his head off to one side towards Celestia, he asked, “What’s that all about?”
“Now is not the time, Gosling. The gala is scheduled to begin soon.”
“Look, I know that something is wrong. I also know that something about Luna is being hidden from me, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is just yet. I’ll do what is expected of me, but when this gala is over, I want some answers. After all those tickets sold, you owe me.”
The way that Celestia squirmed in the doorway was not reassuring, not in the slightest. For a moment, Gosling thought about threatening to put his hoof down, but he wasn’t quite comfortable with tossing out ultimatums, and he wasn’t sure if such a thing would help his cause. Celestia looked just like a filly about to be found out, with the way her eyes darted about and how she fidgeted.
“I don’t need to be worked up like this right before the gala!” Celestia’s voice was almost a whine and Gosling was quite shocked to hear it. “I’m emotional and moody and already having a hard time. Why… I don’t even want to be there tonight, but I have to be. Do you know how many galas I’ve seen? They all bleed together and they’re all so dreadfully boring! The pretentious ponies all come at me all at once and expect me to hang upon every word spoken about their boring, meaningless lives! Tonight, I’ll hear at least a dozen stories about the dangers of social faux pas such as bringing the same dish as somepony else to a potluck! And I’ll have to smile, and nod my head, and try to look interested, and not fall asleep! ARGH!”
Celestia too, vanished with a crackle, leaving Gosling all alone.